


Muffled scream

by sshysmm



Category: Lymond Chronicles - Dorothy Dunnett
Genre: Book 4: Pawn in Frankincense, Drug Withdrawal, F/M, Ficlet Collection, Gen, Las Vegas Wedding, Nightmares, Prompt Fill, Sharing a Bed, the band Au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2021-02-01 04:43:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21382075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sshysmm/pseuds/sshysmm
Summary: Philippa Somerville (aged 17 in this AU) has just married the internationally famous rock star Lymond in a Vegas Hotel, in order to save a child neither of them know. It's weird enough being expected to share a hotel room with him, made even weirder by the symptoms of withdrawal.--Written for Whumptober 2019, set in the Band AU I've been writing (see collections).--There's 31 of these ficlets and I apologise profusely for burying other work in the tags. I will *always* tag these as 'the band au' and you can usethis nifty extension (ao3rdr)to block the tag if this isn't your thing and isn't what you want to see in the Lymond tags!
Relationships: Francis Crawford of Lymond and Sevigny/Philippa Somerville
Kudos: 6
Collections: Ficlets in the Lymond Band AU for Whumptober 2019





	Muffled scream

**Author's Note:**

> [Originally posted on tumblr, October 18 2019.](https://notasapleasure.tumblr.com/tagged/whumptober2019#)

Vegas might have been one of the more unbearably hot parts of this vast, confusing land, but Philippa had forgotten about air conditioning. She woke poorly wrapped in sheets that did not retain her body heat and would not be induced to stop their silky skittishness. Though she curled as tight and chill as an ammonite, a dark stone at the centre of the huge, heart-shaped mattress, there was no comfort to be had alone.

The honeymoon suite was just as ridiculous as she might have imagined: all red, all soft and sensual, except for the glaring, grotesque unsubtlety of the mirrored headboard. This reflected the glow of the neon signs outside, their unnatural colours forcing fingers between the gaps in the curtains and drawing crazed Pollock patterns of light across the surfaces.

Philippa sat up, shivering so hard that she felt an ache in her clavicles. She massaged the tense bone and muscle with icy fingers and blinked into the jumble of strange shapes around her.

The other occupant of the room met the glittering pin-points of her eyes with his own wakeful gaze. His shadow was a question mark on the wall by the window. He sat on the floor and leaned his shoulder against the curtain so that still more of the ethereal outdoor glow got in and fell between the two of them. The red velour blanket that Philippa had insisted he take was wrapped around him, but it looked nightmarishly pink - like the inside of a wound - underneath the neon.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

Her body shuddered again and she hoped that he did not see it in the darkness, forgetting that her white chemise glowed across the space like a lighthouse tower. “It’s rather cold, isn’t it?” she said as casually as she could.

“The air conditioning is broken. I tried adjusting the unit, but nothing changes it.”

She scoffed. “That’s what we get for the cheapest wedding venue in the city, I suppose.”

“I suppose it is.”

Philippa made an assumption about his proximity to the window and the fact that he had already tried to alter the temperature. She felt the exhaustion of recent events loom near, and she longed, quite simply, for sleep. “Look. I’m cold. You’re cold. This bed is enormous, you might as well come up here and share the covers. It’s ok, we’re married now, after all.”

The distant stars of his eyes were perfectly still; the fan above the bed beat its way around with relentless, rhythmical sound, but Lymond did not speak.

“Really, I don’t mind.” Philippa added. “Though I don’t know why they insist on using such impractical material for bedding. It simply won’t stay where it’s put.”

While she could see nothing, there was at least a wry, familiar smile in his voice when he replied: “I think that is rather the point. There is an expectation that very little sleeping will occur in that bed after all.”

“Oh,” she said quietly - she had at last forgotten about the meaning behind the shapes and the textures and the notion of a honeymoon, but all those implications came rushing back with alarming density. Still, she rallied with customary Somerville speed and shook her long smooth hair. “Well. It’s nice to prove expectations wrong, isn’t it? Poor bedcovers have never been used for the purpose they thought they were made for. Might as well let them be bedcovers for a night.”

He must have agreed - or agreed enough, anyway - because he stood and crossed to the curved point of the heart. He unravelled the blanket from his shoulders and Philippa joined him in stretching it and laying it over the satin sheets. It was not really any less slippery than the sheets, but it was large enough to grasp fistfuls and to pin it in place with one’s own weight. They drew the curtains around the bed and lay down back to back, barely benefitting from the other’s living warmth as they struggled to position their bodies in the two opposite chambers of the mattress’ shape.

At first, Philippa supposed she would never sleep. Lying beside her was Mr Crawford: the international superstar, friend of her mother, first nemesis she had ever made. Swathed always in rumour’s gaudy cloak and plagued by tabloid headlines; a romantic picture of the grimly suffering artist, misunderstood and mysterious. _God_, Philippa suddenly wondered. _Has he been in a heart-shaped bed before?_ Once, as a child, she had imagined that he never slept without a clutch of groupies to keep him comfortable. Certainly those who followed his career hoped that that was the case, and sought to be a member of this not-so-select group of chosen ones.

But weariness only grew as her mind whirred and his breathing nearby slipped and slowed into the almost-calm of an opiate-aided sleep. After a time, the strangeness of her situation just made her more perplexed, and it was easier, at last, simply to sleep. She swept her hair around her neck, tucked her hands beneath the pillow (from which she had removed the infuriatingly luxurious cover) and enjoyed a rest that was still and deep as Lake Tahoe.

It was not so for her bedfellow. Lymond’s body lurched and bucked like that of an ill-tempered pony bothered by flies. His muscles spasmed and he moved restlessly, though he was fully unconscious. From within his chest, noises of complaint found their way free, unchecked by the iron will that usually manned the fortress. These built as he struggled in his sleep, sound rising to complaint, nightmares giving way to speech and sound.

His scream was muffled by the bewildering surroundings. Philippa fought against a tide of velour and slippery satin sheets and could not understand why the room remained so dark even when she had freed herself. What could have been moments or hours after she fell asleep, Philippa now sat up and listened, tucking her long hair behind her ears and straining her eyes against the unnerving sight of nothing at all.

Nearby, Lymond was in pain, his breath rasping and desperate. Her instinct was to sooth - to reach out and reassure him, like she would any man or creature - but in the black air she feared his response. Would he know her? Would he know she meant only comfort? Her doubts kept her from responding, and she made herself lie down again, back to the mattress, eyes wide open, listening to a man at war with himself.


End file.
